Talk:Johann Heinrich Betz (1786-1873)
Initial Comments on First Table Ouch! How do I get the table from going off the right-hand page? I don't see a fixed width causing it... Jillaine 18:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC) :That's one reason it was an exploratory article. You either have to fix the width, which leavves insufficient space, or you have to let it dangle on the right. What's actually causing it is the grey dots that are made to dissappear from view in some of the lines. Those were put into force the width and column height, but could be at least partially eliminated. There's a row in the middle header that could be eliminated, and that may eliminate the problem as well. However, if you change your "skin" this can be made into a non-problem. Doesn't work for me, since I need to leave my skin at default, so I can see what others are most likely to see. But you don't have that limitation. Bill 20:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC) ::Ah, I should have seen that (the grey dots). I got rid of them. The width of the header row is sufficient to give the rest of the rows the right column width. At least it now looks okay on the default skin. Ah... changing skins. Mm... Maybe I'll play around with that. I dunno. Thanks, Bill. Jillaine 00:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Making Progress Yes, that looks a lot better. Your approach of using this to display husband and wife data together (as the template was intended), but on the husband's page, solves the exaggerated title length problem. But it does leave this as a bit sexist. Perhpas you intend to also create a similar page for the wife. If this table were made reflexive---as placing it on a subpage of either the husband or wife, you could then use the magic word approach to make the same table appear on both husband and wife's page. Then you could do the same thing for their children. I'll have to think about that a bit. Still seems a bit sexist. And still leaves a problem with multiple marriages. Bill 00:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC) :Tried using the blank row (2nd row) for marriage info, which was heretofore missing from this table. Yes, it's sexist if listed only on the husband's page. And, unless you can make a way for a "snippet" from one page to be automatically pulled into another page, I'm not going to want to copy and paste for each person in the marriage. :Alternatively, I make this a "family" article that both parties link to. Jillaine 01:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC) :Thinking about this further, how would you identify a family. The German familienbuchs identified the family by the first male spouse. If either spouse remarried (either due to death or due to divorce), then that information was also included on the same page. But how would one title, for wiki purposes, such a family page? Here's a link to a German familienbuch page that indicates two marriages on the part of the husband. Can you decipher this? Let me know if you need assistance. Sample German Familienbuch Page Jillaine 01:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC) ::This is the same kind of set up is used in some genealogy programs (e.g., ReUnion). Its basically a variant of the standard family group sheet. The underlying idea is to get the entire family onto a single page---Mom, Dad, Children, spouses and all of their vita. Its hard to pull off in any medium, but especially tricky in an electronic form. There's always too much data, and somewhere something gets squeezed. ::What's lost in your current version is the space for "source" for the marriage. For most this is just picky stuff. For my purposes its critical. For me its essential that you provide the ability to explain "how you know what you know" Without that, the conclusions you reach can not be proven. Getting the information you need is 90% of genealogy. Getting the sources for that information is 90% of that 90%. Hard work, but if you don't get the sources you're wasting your time. Bill 01:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Comments on Current Layout That somewhat solves the problem with sources on the marriage, though you still loose the direct immediacy. I've modified the original template on my user page to explore other alternatives on this---you might return there to see what I've done. Also, the and tags are unnecessary here. I always leave them out as they add to the clutter. Also, some of the wikia folks have a thing about using instead of . The former is now standard in HTML, and some of them think it necessary for future compatibility. Don't see it myself, as the MediaWiki program seems to have accomodated it. If it ever becomes a big issue a bot could be written to correct same. Finally, where you had the parents complete dates, I modified the entry so that you have a future link ready to create their pages when/if you so desire. On the dates, its a good idea to supress extra spaces---I know it looks better with the spaces, but the spaces interfere with article searches---you don't want to be searching for articles with every combination of spaces surrounding the dates---easier to say "no spaces" (which is the standard format), then try all of the possible variations with spaces. Bill 13:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC) :Re the and tags, the problem is that I'm working offline with Dreamweaver, where I DO need the and tags in order to display. But I gotta say, this is WAY too time-consuming to reproduce for each family. WAY too much. I probably won't do more of these until there is some way to automate them from a GEDCOM. Jillaine 14:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC) The Problem with Formatting Sources The solution you are using for the source of information list is, of course, common in genealogy. Most family group sheets, for example, just provide a space somewhere for listing information sources that were used for preparing the group sheet. The problem with that (personal opinion) is that there's no connection to the specific data. You can't tell where any given DOB or a POB etc, came from. So if someone wants to know where a DOB came from, they have to retrieve ALL of the sources until they find the right one. Different people have different objectives. I don't think there's anyway that a single format can meet all objectives. One of the avantage of this site is that you can pursue things without having to deal with a straight jacket imposed by a genealogy program developed by someone who had different objectives in mind. Bill 14:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Simultaneous Edits Mmmm... I'm fairly certain we're editing this page simultaneously. How does Wikia handle THAT? Bill, thanks for the comments. I'm still playing around here, trying to find out what works. One way is to add Reference notes to the dates and places that link to the numbered resources below. Jillaine 14:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC) :If someone edits the same page as you are editing, but closes before you do, their work is saved, Your's won't be. You will, however, get a flag to let you know this, and your work will appear in an editing window. You'll have to transfer that to the current page (the version that's been saved) as a manual action on your part. Not everything is perfect, but it has been well thought through. Bill 16:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)